Capital Facts for Richmond, United States

Richmond flagNicknamed RVA and the River City, Richmond is the state capital for Virginia and is America’s 17th-most highly populated state capital city. Virginia’s capital was named after an affluent suburban town just southeast of London in the United Kingdom.

Guinness World Records documents Richmond’s In Your Ear Recording Studios as being the site where American Michael J. Stuart set the record for highest-pitched note ever whistled.

Within city limits, Richmond occupies 62.5 square miles (162 square kilometers). The state capital’s population was 223,170 Richmonders in 2016.

Also called the Greater Richmond Region, Richmond-Peterson or Central Virginia, the Richmond metropolitan area has a land area of 2,136 square miles (5,532.2 square kilometers) with a metropolitan area population of 1.264 million inhabitants.

At the city level, Richmond’s population density is 3,571 residents per square mile (1,378 per square kilometer).

Population density dilutes within the larger Richmond metropolitan area with an average 592 inhabitants per square mile (228 per square kilometer).

Richmonders celebrate Independence Day as a national holiday each July 4.